Cells in the circulating blood capable of producing connective tissue.

Connective tissue cells were cultured from buffy coat after contamination had been reduced to an absolute minimum by cannulating a large vessel and using special diffusion chambers. The cells were identified by the presence of connective tissue in the diffusion chambers and not by cell morphology. There can be few explanations for their presence. One is that they represent cells of low differentiation with a multipotentiality which have passed into the circulating blood from the vessel wall or some other source. Another is that they are transformed leucocytes. The implications of their presence for wound healing, the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and organisation of thrombi is indicated.